So you know when you were a little kid and your crazy uncle used to steal your nose at every family event? Did you ever think it was real? I mean did you ever freak out or cry because you thought your nose had really been stolen? I have been thinking about it a lot lately and I don’t think I ever bought in to that joke but maybe I did and I was too young to remember. While we were spending Christmas Eve with a local family, Ross decided to pull this trick out on the four year old boy, Brando. There were no words used just a quick popping noise and the confused boy starring at Ross like he was an idiot. Then Ross told the boy to come look because he had his nose. I have never seen a little boy more scared than at that moment. He was terrified. He kept looking in Ross’ hand at this thing that was his nose. Then he started feeling his face to see if his nose was really gone. He remained unconvinced after feeling it on his face and ran out of the room. He quickly returned with a chair and scooted it over in front of the mirror. He jumped up to have a look; he saw his nose in the mirror but was still uncertain. He pushed it from side to side, up and down, and then turned to look in Ross hand another time. Then he ran to his mom and started crying, he wouldn’t go near Ross. We explained to him that it was a joke and I think he understood but he was worried for the rest of the night that someone was going to steal his nose again.

World AIDS Day turned out to be a great success and I hear I am somewhat famous for the dance moves I pulled out in the parade that later ended up on television. All the planning and charlas were worth it to see my community come together to celebrate the day. I truly feel that they are well educated about HIV and AIDS and that it will make a difference in their future decisions. I owe thanks to my Grandma who sat with me on Thanksgiving Day and helped me make all of the ribbons for the event!

We really haven’t done much in the last month since we returned from the states. The people have shut down for the holidays and aren’t interested in working right now. I have been using this time to write lesson plans for the life skills course I am going to start teaching in January and to test my stoves before I start giving them away to people. I used a stove a few days ago to test how long it would take the water to boil. It took about twenty minutes which I thought wasn’t bad. Then I tested how much wood it burned and over 2 ½ hours it only used three small pieces, a huge success as well. Then I watched the smoke to figure out the best way to minimize the smoke. I found that placing three tiny pebbles under the pot made the fire more efficient and created less smoke as well, success, success, success. I went to bed that night very happy with my achievement and ready for the next day so I could give them away. When I woke up the next day it looked as if my stove had vomited. All of the insides had poured out through the base. So now I am back to the beginning. I am searching for a different type of dirt that might hold together better. I used dirt from my yard for the ones I made and this dirt is basically like sand. This is a huge setback as I was ready to get this project done and move onto other things but I guess it is part of the process.

I will be starting the library project next week with restorations and cleaning up the room. Then we will be painting the world map and moving in the first forty books of the library!!!

-Melissa

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